December 31, 2008

We at VDARE.COM will have one reason to celebrate come January 20, 2009. George W. Bush will be gone, and we’ll still be here.

And with your help, we’ll be around when the new President is history. But only with your help …

As you’ll recall, George W. Bush was supposed to introduce a new, compassionate conservatism, taking Ronald Reagan’s American optimism to a new global level. While Reagan’s optimistic outlook focused on tapping his fellow Americans’ capacities, Bush’s greatest enthusiasm has been reserved for foreigners. His grand strategy of what we at VDARE.COM have called Invite the World - Invade the World - In Hock to the World placed his trust in Mexican illegal immigrants, Iraqi voters, and Chinese factory workers and bankers.

The Bush Bubble was phony, of course. It proved to be a variant of an earlier version of “compassionate” governance seen in Latin American countries like Argentina in the post-War world.

It’s important to understand that Latin American inflationary economics, like Bushian compassionate conservatism, wasn’t intended to wreak devastation -- it just evolved as an attempt to keep everybody happy.

From the days of Juan Peron onward, the workers of Buenos Aires would complain to the government that they weren’t being paid enough, so El Presidente would order their bosses to pay them more. Then the factory owners would complain to the government that they were going bankrupt, so the government would order the commercial banks to lend the factories more money. Then the banks would complain that they were about to go broke, so the government would tell the Central Bank to lend the commercial banks more money. When the Central Bank complained that they were running out of reserves, they would be told to print more some more money, lots and lots more money.

America’s leaders, Republican and Democrat, looked at the Latin American defaults of the 1980s and took from them this lesson:

Never let workers get paid more.

That way, you can’t start down the Latin American path to ruin. All the experts, such as Alan Greenspan and Robert Rubin, were agreed that the essential ingredient of economic success was keeping the average American from earning more money. Keep the supply of labor up -- and the price of labor down -- by not enforcing the laws against illegal immigration.

In other words, the key to avoiding the Hispanicization of the economy was to Hispanicize the population! (Of course, nobody ever quite put it in those words …)

Yet, Bush was not a cruel man, nor even a tough man. Like a lot of seemingly formidable Latin American generalissimos, he just wanted everybody to be happy.

In George W. Bush’s America, flat wages didn’t mean workers couldn’t have bigger houses, bigger TVs, and bigger rims on their rides. They could have it all … just by taking out bigger debts.

What could possibly go wrong?

Indeed, to Bush, one of the biggest problems facing the country was that the financial system was holding minorities back from their fair share of the American Dream by not lending them enough money. Bush egged the Bush Bubble on, denouncing traditional down payments on mortgages as the chief barrier to his goal of greatly increasing the number of minority homeowners. Mortgage dollars for home purchases leant to Hispanics soared a staggering 691 percent from 1999 to 2006.

Unlike the Bush family’s amigos in the old Mexican ruling party, however, George W. Bush wasn’t even competent enough to delay the economic collapse until after the election.

The Bush years ended in economic and political ruin, with the financial system more or less nationalized, and an incoming liberal Democratic President given almost carte blanche to hand out to his supporters however many hundreds of billions or even trillions he chooses.

While I wouldn’t be surprised if some of Obama’s “stimulus spending” goes to prop up big newspapers (after all, they gave him such lax scrutiny during the endless election), we can be sure that VDARE.COM won’t be getting any Obama Dollars.

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When you realize how bad a job the MainStream Media did of exposing George W. Bush’s fundamental mistakes, just imagine what pushovers they will be for Barack Obama!

We certainly understand that it’s harder to give this year than last.

But if we are going to continue to expose how the world really works, your financial help is needed now more than ever.

Many thanks.

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24 comments:

Steve, your old pal Denninger is sounding the alarm for California residents:

OH **** - CALIFORNIA - IF YOU LIVE THERE, GET THE **** OUT! in forum [Breaking]

Here is the link:

http://www.tickerforum.org/cgi-ticker/akcs-www?post=76906

Denninger says CA gov sending out IOUs instead of actual payments is a harbinger of doom. Think future dramatic reductions in state assistance programs and basic services including especially law enforcement.

Denninger website overall argues that laws of financial mathematics are basically kicking in now and sealing the endgame spiral of our state and federal governments no matter how much we think 'it can't happen here!' ...

"In George W. Bush’s America, flat wages didn’t mean workers couldn’t have bigger houses, bigger TVs, and bigger rims on their rides. They could have it all … just by taking out bigger debts."

Whats not to like if you are a bank and you lend money for interest for a living? The banks are getting the economy they have bought through campaign contributions to politicians. The banks and credit card companies hate the Dave Ramsey acolytes for a reason: they just dont make much money off of people who dont finance things besides their house.

"All the experts, such as Alan Greenspan and Robert Rubin, were agreed that the essential ingredient of economic success was keeping the average American from earning more money. Keep the supply of labor up -- and the price of labor down -- by not enforcing the laws against illegal immigration."

It is a bit of stretch to assert, without any evidence, that officials of both political parties have been seeking wage stagnation for most of the population. It is more consistent with Bush's public statements to say he believes, like other conservatives, that workers improve their standards of living, while allowing the economy to grow, by pursuing middle-class habits: getting an education, working hard, getting and staying married and saving. Indeed, there is evidence for this hope in the fact that average wage increases have slowed during the social and moral collapse of the last 35 years, a stagnation that has not been stopped by unions, public assistance, special tax preferences or other government actions.

Bush may be, and I think is, unrealistic about how likely this improvement through middle-class habits is for waves of new illegal immigrants, but the best evidence is that he really believes it.

If you really believe that demographics determines economic performance, then you should have a surefire way to make a killing. Simply invest in countries with high-quality populations, especially those not currently talked up. Conversely, short overhyped countries with low-IQ populations.

You claim that Wall Streeters, like most of mainstream America, doesn't allow themselves to think in terms of race differences. This represents a huge arbitrage opportunity. Sure, it'll have to be long-term, but we conservatives are nothing if not long-term planners.

A few months ago, the same prognosticators were claiming that $6 gasoline by the end of the year would doom us all. I think a lot of the doom and gloom is overblown, though perhaps things are worse in places like California.

"Whats not to like if you are a bank and you lend money for interest for a living?"

Especially when, as a bank, you get to create money out of nothing, loan it out and collect an interest income stream. Hey, if the borrower defaults, darn, but, after all, you the bank really took no risk of actually losing anything that actually really existed that you had to work for.

And anyway, if your interest income stream gets too depleted due to loan defaults, just get the taxpayers to bail you out. What's not to like? If you're a banker, anyway.

Dumb taxpayers like me aren't supposed to really "get it" about the above

"If you really believe that demographics determines economic performance, then you should have a surefire way to make a killing. Simply invest in countries with high-quality populations, especially those not currently talked up. "

High IQ countries underperforming: Mongolia, North Korea, Ukraine, Belarus, Uruguay, Vietnam. Get in while you can.

It is a bit of stretch to assert, without any evidence, that officials of both political parties have been seeking wage stagnation for most of the population."

Perhaps so, but it doesn't matter. Businessmen of both political stripes have been pushing for wage stagnation - and their politicians (note: their politicians, not ours) have eagerly done their bidding.

You must realize, Steve, that Christmas is not the best time to ask people to pony up dough for their pet causes. Of late, I've been donating money to my chief pet cause - my family. However, I'll certainly try to help out V-dare as soon as I'm able.

The Han Chinese have implemented a "one-child" law and are, therefore, breeding themselves out of existence faster than Europeans.

But actually, if they don't allow immigration, I think that means that their future is bright. More wealth-per-capita. The same would have been true for the good old USA without immigration ... except for blacks, perhaps. But their birthrate is also declining.

An IQ of 106 for North Korea is unlikely. Years of malnutrition have stunted their biological development, and it will take decades for them to recover. Something similar took place in Vietnam (their last major famine was in 1989). When I was teaching university in Vietnam, there was a huge range of physical development among the students, greater than I have seen anywhere else, and it corresponded with the range of intellectual abilities. The kid who was 4'0 was not the top performer...

It is more consistent with Bush's public statements to say he believes, like other conservatives, that workers improve their standards of living, while allowing the economy to grow, by pursuing middle-class habits: getting an education, working hard, getting and staying married and saving.

Let's see -- wages are the same as in 1973, and taxes (including increased commute time and private school tuition due to the abolition of freedom of association) are two to four times as high. How is anyone supposed to save?

Anywhere from upper 4s/lower 5s in Tibet to the zeros in urban areas. Still, Tibetans are a small fraction of the population and can't be bringing up the rate by themselves. To say that Chinese are going extinct is a little bit of a stretch.

"An IQ of 106 for North Korea is unlikely. Years of malnutrition have stunted their biological development, and it will take decades for them to recover. "

"An IQ of 106 for North Korea is unlikely. Years of malnutrition have stunted their biological development, and it will take decades for them to recover. "

"You're thinking of Lamarckism."

No, that's not Lamarckism. I'll quote Steve:

Lynn's Race Differences in Intelligence: PC Won't Make Them Go Awayexcerpt: "The red line reflects the growth in the trailing country's workforce's average IQ if the gap disappeared among all babies born in 2006.

The subsequent narrowing of the workforce disparity wouldn't even begin until the 2006 babies started their careers at age 18 in 2024.

If the retirement age is 65 and the population remains stable, then the gap would only be half-closed by 2047, and wouldn't disappear until 2071."http://www.vdare.com/sailer/060423_lynn.htm

The world is stuck with IQ differences for a long-time, whether it's nature or nurture, even if genetic engineering of babies soon and on a massive scale. Again, that isn't Lamarckism.

I am thinking of the circumstances in N Korea at present. If you don't get enough nutrition as a child, you never recover your physical and mental potential.

And BTW, it remains a fact that a combination of low TFR, a preferance for males, and zero immigration means that China is aging faster than any country in the world. In a few years its labour force will begin declining.

Think about some common facts, educate yourself, before you tell someone else what they're thinking.

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